Yes, Draco, there is a Santa Claus
by Silver Sailor Ganymede
Summary: Hermione and Draco meet in a pub on Knockturn Alley shortly after the end of the war.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Yes, Draco, there is a Santa Claus  
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

Hermione Jean Granger would never normally have considered setting foot in a pub like the Shrieking Skull, but frankly her craving for anonymity completely overrode any moral objections she had to Knockturn Alley. In places like this, no one bothered you unless you disturbed them first, especially now. Even though the war trials were finally over, no one wanted to be arrested on suspicion of practicing dark magic, especially now that the punishments had become so harsh.

When Hermione stepped past the threshold into the Shrieking Skull, no one so much as spared her a second glance. This was a welcome relief after the past few chaotic months, where she'd gone from being Harry Potter's know-it-all best friend, to a heroine of the wizarding war, to public enemy number one – the last of these being the consequence of her involvement with the war trials. Had she not agreed to help Harry fulfil his life debt to Narcissa Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy would not have been a free man now. Her involvement in keeping one of the Dark Lord's most notorious Death Eaters out of Azkaban was supposed to have been a secret, but now everyone knew about it anyway. She supposed that she shouldn't have been naïve enough to think that the threat of prison was strong enough to keep someone like Rita Skeeter away from such a wonderful story.

Hermione ordered a firewhisky, then turned her attention back to the occupants of the pub. They were certainly not the kind of people with whom she would ever willingly associate, that much she was sure of. A shady-looking man was arguing with a group of goblins, a mound of what was obviously stolen gold littering the table between them. A large number of deathly-pale men and women lounged across the sofas towards the other end of the pub, the red drinks in their hands and the occasional flash of an overly large canine betraying the fact that they were certainly not human, and more than likely vampires. No, this was not the sort of place that Hermione would usually have come to, but it provided the cloak of anonymity she wanted; no one was going to reprimand her for having compromised her beliefs in a place like this. People who frequented Knockturn Alley bars tended to have no morals at all.

It was only when Hermione had her drink in her hand that she realised that there were no free tables, and she really was not in the mood to stand up while she drank; she needed to relax, and she couldn't do that if she couldn't sit down. Well, she certainly wasn't going to risk disturbing the vampires, even if there would have been space with them if one of them moved up a little; there was a predatory look in their eyes that she really did not like.

That was when Hermione caught sight of the silvery-blond hair that could only belong to Draco Malfoy. He was sitting in a particularly shadowy corner, gazing around him as though he could not quite believe where he was. Hermione personally thought that Malfoy looked like a lord who had lost all of his power and was now being forced to frequent the same places that his much-loathed subjects did. But Malfoy or not, there were spare seats around that table, and Hermione was not going to drink firewhisky without sitting down.

When Hermione sat down opposite Malfoy, it seemed to take him a minute to realise exactly who she was. Shock briefly flickered in his eyes, but that was quickly replaced by the deposed lord expression that he had previously been wearing. She couldn't blame him for being surprised though; she could still hardly believe where she was herself.

Surprisingly enough, Malfoy was the first to speak. "I didn't know you drank, Granger."

Not 'what are you doing in here, mudblood' then. He was being strangely civil, but she supposed that made sense. After all, if it weren't for her and Harry's intervention then Malfoy and his father would both be rotting away in Azkaban right now.

Hermione shrugged. "Sometimes." Suddenly the irony of the situation hit here; she had come into this blasted place in an attempt to find some solitude, yet here she was, having a conversation with one of the people who had led her to seek this cloak of anonymity in the first place. Had she left Malfoy to the fate he deserved, she would have had a lot less hassle of late.

"Don't drink in order to forget things," Malfoy muttered, then he looked as though he wished he hadn't spoken.

Hermione felt her lip curl into a sneer. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to do that, Malfoy? And for your information, that's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you here? Trying to lobby the vampires so you can set up a SPEW for them, too?" Malfoy drawled. "If that's the case then you'd have more luck over there than you will with me."

Hermione glared at him, wishing that he hadn't mentioned her failed attempts at helping the House Elves, who were just as enslaved as they had been when she first spoke up about their living conditions. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Then you're obviously here to drown your sorrows, just like the rest of them," Malfoy stated.

"Them?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow. "Then what are you doing here?"

"Not that it concerns you, Granger, but I'm escaping from the idiocy of the general public. I doubt you'll ever know how it feels to be public enemy number one." The icy glare he gave her was so typical of him that Hermione almost wanted to thank him for it; at least one thing in this world still made a bit of sense. And she knew more than well enough what he was feeling, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

"You deserve it, you know," Hermione said sharply. "In fact you deserve much worse. Some of the things you did during the war were evil, pure evil."

Malfoy smirked into his wine, and Hermione knew that if he were have anyone else he would have been laughing outright. It struck her that she had never seen Malfoy laugh: he probably thought it undignified, if the general stuffiness of pureblood society was anything to go by.

"You have such a _Gryffindor _way of looking at things," Malfoy said at last, shaking his head in disbelief. "Anything you agree with is good, anything you disagree with is evil, and there's absolutely no grey area in-between. Have you ever stopped to consider why we acted like we did?"

We. Not 'they'. So he obviously hadn't repented at all, and if he hadn't then there was even less chance that his father had. Lucius Malfoy was probably at home, laughing to himself that he had tricked the mudbloods into letting him walk free again.

"So Voldemort's not evil and the Death Eaters were just misguided, is that what you're saying?" Hermione laughed as the anger that had been bubbling up inside her became too much to bear. "Obviously you're right. And yes, Draco, there is a Santa Claus as well." The reference was obviously lost on Malfoy, who simply stared at Hermione as though she had gone mad, shocked by her sudden use of his first name. She supposed he was right if that's what he was thinking; she felt as though her sanity had been stolen from her by the war, then by the endless trials that had followed it. Yes, the trials had been totally endless but true justice had still not been done. That was one of the things she despised about the wizarding world; people never got what they deserved. Never.

"You're mad, Granger," Malfoy said at last. The way he spoke reminded Hermione that this was indeed the boy who had tormented her for years at school, who regardless of his apparent reform was obviously just as much of a stuck-up pureblood supremacist as ever.

"We're all mad, Malfoy. That's what wars do to people," Hermione replied. With that she left the Shrieking Skull and the brief cloak of anonymity it had provided, returning instead to the insanity that was the real world.


End file.
